Episode Four
2385 Words
Jarek closed his fist at his side and focused.
He had never used the system this way before but the instructions were already inside his head the way forge knowledge always was.
He reached into the warmth of the ring, using his eyes to navigate the materials to forge a weapon.
He pulled the weapon and he closed his fingers around it before anyone could see where it came from.
He straightened up with the blade at his side.
Mira glanced at his hand and then at his face. Her mouth opened slightly.
Jarek knew she had questions and he could see every single one of them sitting right behind her eyes, but Rook was already moving and there was no time.
Rook ran directly at Jarek.
He covered the distance between them in three long strides and swung hard at Jarek's head.
Jarek got the blade up in time to deflect it but the force of the hit sent him sideways and his shoulder hit the ground. He rolled and got back to his feet but Rook was already on him again, driving a fist into his ribs before he could set his footing.
The air left Jarek's body all at once…
He bent forward and Rook grabbed him by the back of the neck and threw him into the stone wall of the Spire. Jarek hit it shoulder first and dropped to one knee. The wall was rough against his face as he pressed against it trying to breathe.
The board flickered at the edge of his vision…
‘Health: 44/100. Essence Reserve: 31/100.’
Rook pulled him back by the collar and hit him twice across the face. The second one snapped his head to the side and he tasted blood immediately. His legs went soft under him and he grabbed the wall to stop himself from going all the way down.
Rook stepped back and looked at him the way someone looks at something they are almost finished with.
Jarek spat blood onto the ground and pushed off the wall.
He bent and came lowly at Rook, driving his shoulder into Rook's midsection and pushing him back three steps before Rook locked both arms around him and lifted him off the ground.
Jarek felt his spine compress as Rook squeezed and then the ground came up hard as Rook dropped him flat on his back.
Every thought left his head for a full second.
*Health: 29/100. Breathing has been compromised and the host has sustained damage to the ribs.*
*Warning: If health drops below 15, host will lose consciousness.*
Mira came in from the left…
She was fast and she caught Rook across the jaw with a clean hit that turned his head. She followed it with a knee and then grabbed his arm trying to lock it behind him.
For two seconds it looked like it might work…
Then Rook reached back with one hand, grabbed her by the throat, and lifted her off the ground like she weighed nothing.
Mira's hands went to his wrist immediately. Her feet kicked at the air.
Jarek looked up from the ground and saw her face going red.
“Drop her!” He yelled amidst his flared stomach.
He got up…
He did not think about his ribs or about the blood running down his chin or the fact that his right eye was already swelling shut. He picked up the blade from where it had fallen and moved toward Rook with every bit of energy left in his body.
Rook saw him coming and threw Mira to the side. She hit the ground and coughed hard with both hands at her throat.
Rook turned to face Jarek fully.
*Health: 21/100. Eight points from unconsciousness. This is the final warning.*
They used every ounce of strength and charged towards Rook.
Rook was stronger and Jarek knew it. So he stopped trying to match him. He let Rook's next swing go past his ear and stepped inside it, driving his elbow up into Rook's chin. Rook's teeth cracked together.
Jarek hit him again in the same spot… Then again… And again.
Rook's legs buckled instantly.
Jarek put his foot behind Rook's knee and pushed. Rook went down heavily and Jarek dropped on top of him, pressing the blade against his throat.
Both of them were breathing hard…
The fire beside them had dropped really low. While the dark around the Spire was thick and getting darker.
Jarek looked at Rook's face — the fury in it had not gone. But even after that, the look on his face screamed exhaustion.
Jarek pulled the blade back…
He started to stand up when the board appeared instantly; It blared red on each corner of the transparent board.
*Neutralize the target completely.*
Jarek frowned his face and looked at the words then at Rook on the ground who was currently beneath him. Rook was not reaching for a weapon, he was just lying there breathing.
Jarek did not want to do it…
He sat with that feeling for a long moment.
“Jarek?” Mira called out, but Jarek said nothing.
He turned it over and looked at every side of it. He thought about his mother and what she would say if she could see him right now kneeling in the dirt outside a ruined building with a blade in his hand.
Then he thought about Mira on the ground with her hands around her throat.
He looked at Rook.
“Do it, I dare you!” Rook yelled.
And in one swift motion as if he'd change his mind if he waited another second.
“As you wish.” Jarek whispered under his breath while he slit his throat.
The blood splashed on his face, but he didn't care. Instead, he stood up slowly and did not look at what was behind him. He wiped the blade on the ground and held it at his side and looked at the four remaining men.
They had not moved an inch since the fight started. They stood together near the fire watching him with blank faces.
Nobody reached for a weapon nor did they say a word…
Jarek straightened up as much as his ribs would allow. "No fighting among ourselves," he said even though his whole body was shaking beneath it. "No stealing from each other, no betrayals, and those are the only rules."
The four men looked at each other… Then back at him.
"No problem, Master," one of them said.
Jarek looked at him. "Don't call me that. We work together,” he pointed at no one in particular. “All of us, we work together and that is how this goes here.”
Another short silence. Then the same man nodded. "Understood."
The board updated quietly at the edge of Jarek's vision.
*Loyalty scores increased by 7% across all active crew members.*
Jarek looked at the numbers. He should have felt good about that. But part of him registered that it was progress.
But the rest of him was still back thirty seconds ago and could not quite move forward from it yet.
Mira came to stand beside him. She did not say anything. She just stood there.
"Get some sleep," Jarek told the men. "We start early."
***
He woke up before anyone else.
The sky through the broken top of the Spire was still dark but the deepest part of the night had passed. Jarek sat up quietly, checked that everyone around him was still sleeping, and focused on the ring.
He pulled the week's food supply through the system the same way he had pulled the blade, carefully and without sound, letting it settle near the entrance in a way that looked like it had simply been there.
He was still arranging it when he heard footsteps behind him.
"What are you doing out here?"
Mira stood at the entrance with her arms crossed and her hair still flat on one side from sleeping.
"I needed to pee," Jarek said. "Came out and found this."
Mira looked at the supplies. Then at him. "I peed out here a few hours ago. There was nothing here."
"Then we got lucky."
"Or someone left poison for us to find."
"Mira."
"I'm serious, Jarek. We do not know this area. We do not know who else is out here."
"We should wake the others and get to work," he said. "We are burning daylight we do not have."
Mira looked at him for another long second. She clearly had more to say. She kept it to herself and went back inside.
The board appeared the moment the crew was assembled.
[Daily Task]
Mine 6 units of energy crystals from the eastern terrain before nightfall.
Difficulty: High
Reward: Saved to treasury upon completion and advanced foresight to view the potential of each rare material.
Timer: Active
They spread out through the trees and started digging.
The work was hard and this made it slow to mine. The ground in the eastern section was dense and packed and the crystals sat deep. But Forge Sense guided Jarek to each deposit cleanly and the crew followed his directions without complaint.
They had been at it for nine hours when the noise started.
It came from the far side of a collapsed section of wall. It was a heavy sound that was not wind and not any of the crew. Jarek held up a fist and everyone stopped.
Then the screaming started…
Then they saw the rumbling of the dry leaves and instinctively they ran.
On the other side of the wall in a shallow open space between three large trees, a creature was pushing through the undergrowth toward four people backed against the stone. Three women and one man, all of them pressed together with nowhere to go.
The beast was large and pale with too many joints in its legs and a head that sat too low on its body.
Everything about the way it moved was wrong…
Jarek looked at it and then at the system which was blaring red again.
*Unknown creature classification. Likely drawn by concentrated essence deposits. Eternal Night expels living organisms from areas of high essence activity — this specimen has been mutated by prolonged exposure rather than expelled. Treat as hostile.*
"Hit it from both sides," Jarek said to the crew. "Don't let it turn."
They went in…
The fight was shorter than the one the night before but louder. The beast was fast for its size and it took three of them working together to hold its attention while the others came at its flanks. Jarek drove his blade into the base of its neck twice before it went down and stopped moving.
The four people against the wall had not moved the entire time.
Jarek looked at them. They were dirty and shaken and all four of them were staring at him with wide eyes.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
They shook their heads.
"Where did you come from?"
The man answered. They had been traveling for two days from the outer edge of a collapsed district, following rumors of a place where the Eternal Night had not fully taken hold yet.
"Where did you first see the beast?"
The three women looked at each other. Then one of them looked at the ground.
The man cleared his throat. "We were… occupied. In the trees. About a mile east."
Jarek looked at him for a moment. Then he looked at the trees behind them. Then back at the man. "Occupied."
Nobody elaborated.
Jarek decided not to push it, besides, he needed as many people as possible to recruit that would help him build the ruined Spire.
"Would you want to join my crew? We have food, shelter, and work."
The man nodded before Jarek had even finished the sentence. The three women agreed immediately after.
The board updated.
*New crew members added.’
‘Loyalty Scores:’
Kael — 22%
Dara — 90%
Fen — 90%
Suri — 90%
Jarek noted the scores and moved on.
The system confirmed the daily task complete a short while later. Jarek pulled up the treasury to check the accumulated rewards and felt the corner of his mouth pull up slightly when he saw what had built up over the two days.
"Who has seen the beast?" someone asked behind him.
Jarek turned around and walked hastily towards where they kept the beast — It wasn't there.
“Who took the beast?!” Jarek yelled, but none of them answered.
Immediately as he ordered that they should gather their tools and he counted heads automatically the way his mother had taught him to count materials at the forge, a fast habit he never skipped.
He counted again…
Someone was missing…
It was Kael…
Jarek looked at the three women. Something in their faces had changed. They were standing close together and very still, which was different from how they had been standing a minute ago.
"Where is he?" Jarek asked.
One of them looked at her feet.
Jarek stepped forward. "Talk. Now."
The woman who had spoken first back at the wall lifted her eyes. "We saw this place when we were traveling. Before we found you. He recognized it. He said he knew people who would want to know about it." She stopped. "He left to find them when no one was watching. I don't know if he took the beast.”
Jarek was already thinking about weapons before she finished the sentence. He reached into the system and pulled up the forge list. Four blades, matched to the four men from the first night. He forged them one after another and handed them out without explaining how he had made them.
The men took the blades and did not ask questions. They just looked at each other in surprise while they tightened their grips on their weapons.
“The way they described this place, it seems they are going to the ruined spire. One of us is down there preparing our dinner. We will all go there and give them a good lesson.”
Jarek turned toward the Spire and started running. With every thinking step, he hoped he wasn't already late.
- Writer
